


Ruins

by Bazylia_de_Grean



Series: If Thou Art Broken [4]
Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Gen, PoE Inktober
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-09-01 22:08:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16773856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bazylia_de_Grean/pseuds/Bazylia_de_Grean
Summary: The crew is in a low mood, too – especially the Dyrwoodans – so Eira, being a dutiful captain, decides to throw a small celebration. It all goes well until the smell of honey and fresh cinnamon buns fills her nostrils. Edér starts praising the Dyrwoodan cuisine, the crew is crying out in joy – but Eira suddenly feels sick.(Eira remembers losing Caed Nua.)





	Ruins

**Author's Note:**

> (PoE Inktober, prompt 6: Ruins)

Edér laughs and Aloth smiles, but the victories seem bitter to them; Eira knows because she has seen her reflection in the mirror smile at her the same way, heard a similar laugh escaping her own mouth. They are just keeping up appearances.

Their new companions are more enthusiastic, either too focused on duty or too full of faith – or themselves – to notice the _details_. But mostly, they just seem… so very young. Still assured in their own invincibility. Still celebrating every success, cheering her on every step of the way.

Eira smiles and thanks them for that, but she _hates_ it. Every battle they win leaves a foul aftertaste in her mouth, the metallic tang of blood and the suffocating dust – ash and crumbling bones. How can anyone cheer after seeing _death_? She cannot understand it, and never will.

When Edér jokes after a fight, even when he tells stories of the Saint’s War – it is different. There is bitterness and something grim underneath; he jests to ward off fear and that overwhelming, unnamed feeling they all dread even if some are not aware of it.

The crew is in a low mood, too – especially the Dyrwoodans – so Eira, being a dutiful captain, decides to throw a small celebration. Just food and drinks and shanties; they will sing and play music and maybe dance, Edér will tell a tale or two and they will laugh – they will forget, for a while.

It all goes well until the smell of honey and fresh cinnamon buns fills her nostrils. Edér starts praising the Dyrwoodan cuisine, the crew is crying out in joy – but Eira suddenly feels _sick_.

She gets up, sways on her feet – someone makes a joke about the captain being too deep in her cups already, but she lets them, she laughs it off, waves her hand, anything just to _leave_. She has to lean on the wall to reach her cabin.

Once there, she bolts the door and falls onto the bed. Everything is back; Caed Nua, all the work and care and _love_ she put into that keep, all the friends she made during those five years – and earlier – all the people who worked there and loved their thaynu, and how she knew all their names because they were her family – her new _clan_ – her _home_. How she thought Eothas guided her there, how she was certain it was his blessing – and how it turned out all that was just a dream, how her god destroyed everything – how he refused to explain, how calm and serene and _benevolent_ he sounded after he killed so many people, how he called it necessary – how she gave him faith and loyalty and only got lies in return, lies that did not even offer comfort – how she had heard a similar explanation in Sun in Shadow, in two different lifetimes – how _Thaos’_ lies had been more merciful.

She has kept it all bottled up for so long, because one moment the keep was falling down onto her head, and the next she woke on a ship with Edér sitting nearby, and then she had to fight, and then… Her kin in the Land welcomes death; Eira has always opposed that. And she never had time to – to… She has kept it frozen, hoping it would not rot, but now the ice melts and starts flowing down her cheek and why is it so scalding hot…

“What’s wrong?” asks a quiet, deep voice, as the world shifts from the real cabin into its perfect mental image, different because of only one detail – Thaos.

She is furious at him for intruding her privacy – but he is just a soul locked in a medallion, and only goes where she lets him; one of his truths, ugly and bitter. A part of her is also grateful it is him – he is the only person who will not be scared or disheartened by her weakness, who does not need her to be inspiring – who simply does not care, but it means she can drop the calm, heroic face of _the Watcher_ and just be herself: a lost, frightened girl, trying to find her way in the dark while others believe she knows the path and is carrying a torch and can read the markings on the wall.

“Nothing,” she replies without thinking, as she would say to anyone else. Nothing. No troubles at all. Just the miraculous Watcher who can solve everything. How could she not, when she speaks to the gods? She is not even surprised they did not listen; after all, kith never do. Nothing, because how do you even say things like ‘my god betrayed me’ or maybe ‘I was so foolish to hope’ or maybe ‘I gave my god _everything_ and he _took_ _my home_ and _destroyed my life_ and _killed my family_ and then…

“Nothing,” Thaos repeats slowly, as if tasting the word, and then grimaces. “That’s a lot of salt for a nothing,” he adds, indicating her tears.

“I didn’t call you,” Eira mutters, burrowing into a pillow.

The bed creaks – all too realistically – when he perches on the edge of the mattress. “You didn’t tell me to go away.”

Thaos catches the pillow when she throws it at him, and lets it drop to the floor. Not even enough decency to let her just hit him with an imaginary bag of imaginary feathers.

“So?” he asks. “Are you going to tell me what it is, or are we going to just sit here like this until morning?” Despite what the words might suggest, there is no sting to them; if she did not know better, she could almost think he honestly wanted to comfort her.

“It’s…” She wipes her cheeks with the back of her hand. What does she have to lose, really? The high opinion he has never had of her? “It was a silly thing, really, but I remembered home – Caed Nua – and…” She blinks as tears fill her eyes again; he is blurry when she looks up at him. “I’ve never had time to mourn them,” she confesses in a whisper, then presses her hands to her mouth to stifle a sob. “I’ve never…” Then something in her breaks – the ice, when the ice breaks there is always _rock_ underneath – and she looks at him with all the bitterness and anger and hurt she wants to direct at Eothas. “What do you know about it, anyway?” she asks in a whisper; it is dripping with poison but she does not even regret – not now – maybe she will later. “What are _home_ and _family_ to you but empty words?”

“Nothing.” Thaos gets up slowly, his face impassive – carefully blank – each move measured, too precise. “Nothing, of course,” he says quietly, in a very even, flat voice. “How would I know anything about loss?”


End file.
